Trend on campuses, but not considered at UGA

"That is our goal," said Andrea Daniel, Athens Tech's vice president for external affairs. "We are also talking about (banning) tobacco products" other than cigarettes.

The ban could go into effect as soon as spring quarter, Daniel said.

If Athens Tech officials follow through on the plan, the University of Georgia would become the only Athens-area college that still allows on-campus smoking.

More and more colleges are banning even outdoor smoking.

According to the American Nonsmoker's Rights Foundation, about 160 U.S. colleges and universities had prohibited smoking anywhere on campus as of July, including eight schools in Georgia. The list grew in September when Pennsylvania's system of public colleges and universities instituted a total smoking ban.

About one in five college students were smokers as of 2006, according to the American Lung Association - down sharply from 1999, when nearly 31 percent smoked. Campus smoking bans have been a big factor, according to a report the association released last month, "Big Tobacco on Campus."

In Georgia, state law bans smoking in state-owned buildings but not outdoors.

More and more individual institutions are making that choice, however.

The Clarke County School District not only prohibits lighting up, but bans the mere possession of tobacco products on school grounds. The Athens-Clarke County Library also forbids smoking. The Oglethorpe County Public Library enacted a ban just Tuesday.

Gainesville State College was one of the first two-year colleges in the United States to ban smoking anywhere on campus in 2003. When the college expanded with a satellite campus in Oconee County, it extended the ban to Watkinsville, too.

"When I came, I heard a lot of complaints by faculty and students about going into buildings, that they had to go through this haze of smoke," said Gainesville State President Martha Nesbitt.

When Nesbitt asked for a survey of workers and students, 75 percent of faculty and staff, but only 52 percent of students, supported a ban, she said.

Nesbitt barred smokers from firing up near doorways and restricted smoking to three shelter areas.

"It worked pretty well for a while, but then the students tended to get lax again," she said.

After smokers accidentally started two fires near one of the shelters, Nesbitt and the college's executive council decided to ban smoking entirely on campus.

"We know that smoking is one of the worst things you can do for your health, and we wanted to set an example," Nesbitt said. "And we wanted to clean up the campus of all these cigarette butts."

Smokers still can light up in their cars, because vehicles are private property, she said.

Piedmont College enacted a ban in 2007, abolishing outdoor smoking areas in favor of a total smoking ban on the college's main campus in Demorest, said college spokesman David Price.

Athens Tech officials formed a committee about two years ago to study a smoking ban, but temporarily put the study on hold when a key committee member took another job.

"We're not really where we should be," Daniel said. "We would like to have it done by spring quarter, but I don't know if we will. We will probably go through a transition period."

Athens Tech and the satellite campuses of Gainesville State and Piedmont College are commuter campuses, with no residence halls, Nesbitt observed.

"It would be a lot harder if your were a residential college," she said.

A handful of residential colleges and universities have adopted total smoking bans, however, including the University of California-Davis in 2006 and Iowa State University and the University of Iowa this year.

At UGA, smoking is banned at building entrances but not in outdoor areas, said university spokesman Tom Jackson.

The UGA Athletic Association also imposed a total smoking ban in Sanford Stadium this year.

But at least in the past several years, there's been no talk of making the whole campus smoke-free, Jackson said.